SparePlanet 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (26)

• On the post: If Your Options Are To Change With The Times Or To Just Complain About Them, Which Is More Likely To Work?

  

  SparePlanet ( profile ), 19 Jan, 2010 @ 09:40pm

  Re: Re:

  :) It's only pompous if you can't back it up, and I can back it up!
  
  I think you should shut it, or at least express your own opinions instead of wrongly representing mine.

• On the post: If Your Options Are To Change With The Times Or To Just Complain About Them, Which Is More Likely To Work?

  

  SparePlanet ( profile ), 19 Jan, 2010 @ 09:30pm

  Re: Re: Re:

  No, that wasn't a rap attack. I think most "Alternative" is pretty unoriginal, too.
  
  And some rap is quite clever.
  
  I think the music industry in general has dumbed down the public in general by trying to force-feed us artists that they think will sell because they fit a certain "formula".
  
  I like the current industry offerings about as much as I like cable and phone promotions.
  
  I agree there is good music out there, and astute, discerning listeners, as well.
  
  But seriously, would you really compare the amount of mediocrity in the old-school music biz to that of today? It's not even close.
  
  Here's a little history lesson for you:
  
  Studio time cost a fortune back then. Only a handful could afford it. That's how the title "Producer" gained so much status. A Producer was someone who already had a lot of money and used it, risked it, to create records, because of his/her passion for music. They booked studios, hired musicians, and writers, and arrangers. Producers had know their stuff because it was their money on the line.
  
  Studio time is free now. So-called "producers" don't need and don't use money to make music, just the opposite..they are trying to use Music to make money. As far as talent and ability, there is no threshold, no innate filter, as there was in the past.
  
  If you could eat a piece of apple pie or go out and pick apples and bake a pie, which would you do?
  
  If you could sit by a fire and keep warm or go out and chop wood, which would you do?
  
  There are a lot of people trying to eat the pie, feel the warmth (e.g. make money off music) without picking the apples, and developing the chops. Trying to be Master Electricians without going thru the apprenticeship phase.
  
  Not everybody. But astronomically more people than before, because of the accessibility factor.
  
  A simple analogy for yesterday's vs. today's music business:
  
  From 1950 to 1980 a total of about 4,500 people went on professional singing auditions in Boston, MA. (a guess)
  
  In 2009, over 5000 auditioned in a single two day period! (at American Idol tryouts)
  
  And by rule, they had to be non-professionals!
  
  Imagine having to sit thru all of those auditions...
  
  ..and that is what the music industry is like for me, nowadays. I get MySpace messages asking me to check stuff out. I get stopped walking along the beach. I don't even want to be bothered anymore, because the odds of it being good are so miniscule.
  
  I'm sure there's good stuff out there, but I have no idea where to look.

• On the post: If Your Options Are To Change With The Times Or To Just Complain About Them, Which Is More Likely To Work?

  

  SparePlanet ( profile ), 18 Jan, 2010 @ 09:04am

  Re:

  Yes, it IS pretty sickening when they just take a good-looking kid, write her/him some songs, tweak their voice in the studio, and mass-market it like some kind of commodity.
  
  My attempted point would have been better served by using perfomrers ("artists") from the 60's as examples. Aretha Franklin, John Paul Jones of Led Zepplin, Keith Emerson of ELP..
  
  That was a day and age when you had to have extraordinary talent to even consider going into the music biz.
  
  Now the entire studio is built into a notebook computer, the drummer is a sample loop, and anyone who can make words that rhyme (hint: which they already do, lol) thinks they are gifted.

• On the post: If Your Options Are To Change With The Times Or To Just Complain About Them, Which Is More Likely To Work?

  

  SparePlanet ( profile ), 18 Jan, 2010 @ 07:30am

  He assumes his product is "art". That's a very common misconception. There are tons of photographs out there. Some are art. Most aren't. Likewise with songs.
  
  Also assumes that anyone who wants should have a God-given right to make money in the music industry, yet calls American Idol successes "grotesque". Talk about convoluted thinking! That is straight backwards! If anything, those AI kids who were born with baby faces and amazing voices have God's blessing to choose music as a career.
  
  On top of everything else (this time I am assuming) he calls himself "DJ" so perhaps his first foray into the music biz was trying to make money spinning other peoples, uhhmmm, "art", without compensating them or even getting permission.
  
  
  Ahhhh, humans. Thank you, Lord for giving me tolerance and a sense of humor.

• On the post: Fashion Designers Hope That Michelle Obama Gets Them Copyright On Clothing Design

  

  SparePlanet ( profile ), 16 Jan, 2010 @ 03:37pm

  Upon tracking down one of your "repeated studies" which you cite as proof of your point, it turns out not to be a study at all, but actually a legal paper. Legal papers put forth ARGUMENTS. They are completely unscientific and deliberately ignore any evidence contrary to the predetermined conclusion. 50% of arguments are shot down by the judge, and even those that are accepted are not considered facts, they are just precedents. Studies do just the opposite. They set up test conditions vs. known or verifiable facts. A well-conducted study automatically precludes the possibility of false conclusions. A study of the fashion industry which followed basic scientific principles, would include measuring how much innovation occurred with and without the rampant copying. Science deals in reality. Law is about the power of persuasion. Your proof is like stating that X=45. Meaningless. Here is the link to your proof, and it is very clear why YOU didn't provide the link. In the abstract of the document, the authors state: "We argue that the fashion industry counter-intuitively operates within a low-IP equilibrium in which copying does not deter innovation and may actually promote it." Nothing but opinion. "OJ was framed" http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=878401

• On the post: Fashion Designers Hope That Michelle Obama Gets Them Copyright On Clothing Design

  

  SparePlanet ( profile ), 16 Jan, 2010 @ 02:33pm

  IP protection for you only

  To the author:
  
  I am sure you believe in what you are writing here, but it is complete fantasy. It is a total croc.
  
  "The fashion industry is thriving." Nope
  
  "It's creative." No, it's actually quite stagnant. Have you been to GUESS lately? Jeans and T-shirts. Wow, that's original.
  
  "Innovation is spurred by rampant copying." That's completely ficticious. Rampant copying discourages innovation.
  
  "Numerous and repeated studies have shown..." if they are so numerous, why no references? Because you made that up to try to legitimize your wishful thinking.
  
  You sound like one of those radio show hosts who will say anything, just to get people on both sides heated up.
  
  The first law that should be made is to bar consumers from debates about what producers rights should be.
  
  They know not what the producers go thru, and therefore as literally as literal can get...do not know what they are talking about.
  
  From the biased perspective of just wanting stuff as cheap as possible, preferrably free, they invent baseless claims, and make nonsensical statements that are nothing but wishful thinking.
  
  The debate would be very different if it was their 40, 50 or 60 hours per week that was supposed to go unpaid.
  
  Please understand that IP laws are not for the protection of ideas. Ideas are cheap and easy to come by. "A dime a dozen" as one person put it. Anyone can sit there and say, "Wouldn't it be nice if TV's were flat, thin & wall-mounted"
  
  But try engineering one! THAT takes a lot of expensive education and countless frustrating hours. THAT is what is being protected by IP/copyright laws. THAT is what people expect to get paid for. And THAT is what people WILL NOT ATTEMPT if someone else can easily cash in on the fruits of their labor, for 10 cents on the dollar, because of having no R&D costs to recoup.
  
  Innovation is not coming up with ideas. It is the blood, sweat and tears of making an idea into a reality.
  
  Innovation IS stimulated by competition.
  
  It most assuredly is not stimulated by allowing copying.
  It is stifled.